


Afterward

by EarlGrayJasmine



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27885694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarlGrayJasmine/pseuds/EarlGrayJasmine
Summary: When Sam returns to base after the events of "Unending," Jack calls her in for a debrief, and a question.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 13
Kudos: 103





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm rewatching, but it's been years since I've seen the end of the show so I might have flubbed some details.

“So you were stuck in a time dilation field,” O’Neill said skimming over the file.

“Apparently.”

Carter stood across from him. As General Landry had been part of the mission and needed to be debriefed, O’Neill had been called in. O’Neill had borrowed the general’s office and was sitting behind his desk.

“And you stayed there for fifty years. And then jumped back in time.”

“Not so much jumped back as generated a second, localized time dilation field cancelling out the original effect and allowing Teal’c to appear at the moment before I activated the original field with the code needed to disconnect the Asgardian power core.”

“Right.” It had been a long day and Carter’s explanation made his brain hurt. Then again they always did. Besides, he had something else on his mind.

Jack looked up and met Sam’s eyes. “And you don’t remember anything?”

It was his first real question.

“No,” she said. “How could I? Those fifty years never happened.”

“But they happened for Teal’c.”

“Correct.”

“You’re making my head spin Carter.”

“I know Sir. It’s…a lot to process.” Sam had done her best to reverse engineer the solution Teal’c had given her. She understood the science of what had happened, but the reality of it? That was something else.

Carter directed her attention back to the moment in front of her. The reality that the next fifty years of her life had come and gone and vanished was something she was trying not to think too much about. Luckily she had a much smaller matter scratching at her mind. “Why did you save me for last?”

“Hmm?” Jack had turned back to the report and was making a note.

“I’m the last interview, but wouldn’t it have helped to talk to me first? To understand the science of it.”

“Carter, I’m never going to understand the science of it. You should know that by now.”

Sam shook her head. Jack may not have understood the math behind what had happened, but she knew he was following. He was smarter than he pretended to be.

“Still,” she said, leaving the door open for a more serious answer.

“Luck of the draw,” he shrugged. But it was a lie. Jack did have a reason he wanted to talk to Carter last, but he hadn’t expected it to make him so nervous. Hesitation caught him and kept him in his seat. His palms had started to sweat.

Carter mistook the pang of fear that had grabbed him as a dismissal and turned toward the door. “Well if you need anything else,” she said, reaching for the nob.

But Jack couldn’t wait any longer. He had already been waiting for years.

“Carter wait,” he said through a shock of adrenaline through his chest. “There is something else I wanted to talk to you about. To ask you.”

She turned back, waiting.

Jack met her eyes. The words were out of his mouth before he had time to doubt them. “Marry me.”

“What?” She didn’t quite believe her ears. However, she did believe the earnest, aching look in Jack’s eyes.

“You heard me.”

Sam looked at the floor.“Nothing’s changed.”

“Everything’s changed,” O’Neill replied. He stood up. “When any of us go through that gate, there’s a chance we won’t come back. I know that. I’ve lived that. Now that you go and I don’t, I’ve made whatever peace with that I can. But to know that you could walk through the gate and live the whole rest of your life without me?”

Jack stepped close. Sam’s breath caught.

“That’s different Carter. To know that you could live another fifty years without me ever getting to see you again, to tell you…some things that I should,” he said. “I think maybe we’ve both always believed there’ll be an afterward to all this. At least I have. That one day one of us will retire and maybe then…” He shook his head. “But what if there isn’t? What happens if we don’t make it that far?”

Carter was quiet for a long moment. “I keep looking over Teal’c’s report and wishing your name was on it, that you had been stuck there with us. It wouldn’t change the fact that for me those years never happened, but at least I would know that in some pocket of this reality you and I got our chance.”

“We could have the chance right here.” Jack put his hand on her cheek.

“You’re still one of my superiors,” she said, though she reveled in the feel of his calloused palm on her skin.“You’re probably always going to be.”

“Exactly!” Jack threw his arms wide. “Our lives are tied to that thing” —he gestured out the window to the conference room and the Stargate below— “until one of us retires or gets stuck in a time bubble or _dies_ …”

“Time dilation field.”

“Whatever. Sam I…” he began. Her eyes flicked up at the sound of her first name. Something reckless danced in Jack’s expression.

“Sir,” she whispered. She couldn’t bring herself to call him Jack. Part of her wondered what would happen if she did. Instead she stepped back. “We could never get away with it.”

“You say that like it’s the wildest think we’ve ever done.”

“In a lot of ways it is.”

“Says the woman who just spent fifty years on a space ship.”

“This is different. This is a rule I don’t think I can disobey. For a long time neither could you.”

“I know,” said O’Neill. “And I got to serve with you, and save the world with you. I wouldn’t give up that time for anything. But now?” He sighed. “The older I get the more I worry that I’ll never even get to tell you I love you.” The words came out of his mouth as easily as he thought them, as he’d always thought them. It was only from Sam’s expression that he was sure he’d said them out loud. “That’s that anyway. I love you.”

She stood frozen. She had known that— at least suspected—but hearing him say it made her heart thump like they were a fire fight. She burned to say it back, but she couldn’t. They couldn’t. One of them had to keep their head on. If it couldn’t be him it would be her. That’s why they made such a strong team. The irony cut her like a bullet.

“I—” she started, but there was nothing to say.

Jack shook his head. “It’s alright. You don’t need to say it back. You don’t need to say anything. You can even pretend this conversation never happened, if you like. I just…I wanted you to know.”

Sam didn’t know what else to do, so she took another step toward the door. Jack circled back around the desk.

“And Carter?” he added. She turned back. “I’m glad you’re safe.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me a hot minute to collect my thoughts on this one but here it is, the conclusion.

Sam shut the general’s door behind her. She took a few steps down the hall and then stopped and pressed her back against the wall. The concrete felt cool through her jacket as she drew in a deep, steadying breath. _What was he thinking?_

They had been over this a hundred times, though not in so many words. They had been over it in glances cut short and quick touches on the back of the hand. They had said “I care about you” and “There’s no one I’d rather have watching my back.” Every time the team encountered a different reality where another Sam and Jack were together this Sam laughed it off. She might share a quick look with her O’Neill—their eyes would meet and say, if not here at least somewhere—then they would go about their work. In this reality they could never be.

And yet…

Sam’s car pulled to a stop in O’Neill’s driveway. By the time SG-1 was free to leave the base the general had already gone, but Sam preferred to do this away from work. Besides, she knew exactly where to find him.

She didn’t even bother trying the house. She strolled briskly around back to the fish pond and found Jack sitting in his favorite chair watching the lure as he reeled it to shore.

He didn’t react to her presence. Sam wondered if he hadn’t seen her until he said, “You didn’t have to come all the way out here Carter. I’m sorry. I should never have—”

“Yes,” Sam said.

“I know. It was inconsiderate of me. Irresponsible. When I read that report I guess I panicked a little, but your career, your work is too important. You’re too important. It won’t happen again.”

“No, Sir…Jack,” she clarified. “ _Yes._ ”

He looked at her then, his eyebrows raised. She could see that he was holding back any more of a reaction, holding back his hope.

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

They only stood a few paces apart but the distance hung between them. Just the other day they had been separated by both light-years and decades. How could a few feet of grass feel so far compared to that? And yet it did. Maybe because no matter how much physical space was or wasn’t between them there was always _something_ holding them back. At least, until now they had been. They had spent years caught in each others’ orbits but now they could finally collide.

Sam pulled Jack close as she kissed him. He wanted nothing more than to give in to this moment but instead he broke from the kiss. He pressed his forehead to hers.

“I don’t understand,” Jack said. “You were right. The situation hasn’t changed, no matter how badly I want to believe otherwise.”

“No,” she confirmed, “it hasn’t.”

Jack looked away. He knew this was too good to be true.

“You don’t have to do this Carter.” If they were caught they would be disciplined, maybe even discharged. He was close to retirement, but Sam? This could hold her back from becoming a general. “It’s not worth it. I should never have—”

Sam grabbed his hands, keeping him close.

“Actually Sir I think it is.”

Jack raised that quizzical eyebrow again. She’d said the opposite earlier. “What about the chain of command? The SGC is the biggest security risk on the planet. _To_ the planet. If we compromise that—”

“How long have you been in love with me?”

That caught Jack off guard. He couldn’t quite read the expression on her face.

“A while,” he offered. Eight years seemed like too blunt of an answer.

“A while,” Sam repeated. She tried to keep the smile from breaking across her lips as she made her point. “And in that while, what harm has befallen the SGC?”

O’Neill opened his mouth to start a very long list but Sam interjected, “What harm has befallen the SGC _as a result of the way you feel about me?_ Or I feel about you?”

Jack’s list was suddenly a lot shorter.

“Arguably none,” he said.

“Exactly. So nothing’s changed about the situation, but also…nothing’s really changing about us. If we can feel this way for so long and the world hasn’t ended—”

“Thanks to us, I might add.”

“—then why should we keep pretending otherwise?”

Jack smiled but it was a smile tinged with sadness. He was so afraid that at any moment Carter would realize he wasn’t worth the risk.

“You were right,” she continued. “For a long time I’ve wanted to believe in some mythical afterward where one of us isn’t attached to the Stargate Program anymore. That one day, some day, maybe….But that day’s not coming, at least not any time soon. I don’t want it to. I am far from ready to be done with the stargate and I don’t think you are either.”

He wasn’t. His heart hammered.

“What changed your mind?” Jack whispered. Before he gave in to the tide of joy threatening to break him open he had to know.

“I went to the control room and…You know at this point I’ve given most of my adult life to the Stargate Program? For years I dreamed of getting it to work, of understanding it, and then I did. Stepping through the event horizon might just be my favorite thing in the world. In the galaxy, I guess. Even after all this time, each planet brings new challenges and new wonders. I can’t imagine my life without it.”

“I’m sure the two of you will be very happy together,” Jack teased. It was a nervous deflection and Sam knew it. She caught his cheek to keep him from turning away.

“But when I walked by the gate today I realized that I didn’t want to go through,” she said. “Not until I said yes. Not until I told you that I love you too.”

Jack grinned then. All the hope he’d been swallowing broke through as he swept Sam up and kissed her with all the “some days” and “one days” and “maybes” he’d ever held back. Someday was here.


End file.
